Lost With a Whimper
by Storms in Heaven
Summary: What if Sophie failed? What if she couldn't sever Calcifer and Howl without killing them both and what if she decided to live with the consequences...
1. Losing Hope

What if Sophie was too late? What if she couldn't sever Calcifer and Howl without killing them both, and what if she chooses to live with the conseqences...

* * *

"Sophie…" Howl's voice was a quiet moan. "Promise me you won't leave me alone."

"I promise."

Howl wasn't the same anymore. He was darker, more removed, less human. Calcifer was meaner too. She'd been too late. She had saved Howl, but she hadn't saved his soul, and now she watched as he lost himself to his fallen star. She couldn't leave though. She had promised him, and he did need her, she told herself. She helped him to hold on to himself.

He had killed the Witch of the Waste. The old hag was dead and Sophie was back to herself. Whether that was due to the witch's death or Sophie's own innate magic she wasn't sure… but perhaps she owed that to Howl too.

In the dark she dreamed of how it could have been. If only… but it was too late for ifs. Now all she had left was the present and she wouldn't fail this time. And she couldn't give up on Howl. Not when it was partially her fault.

"Sophie, I'm so cold. Why am I cold?" He stood before her shivering in the dark. He sounded so lost and confused: a child crying in a storm. He looked down at her curiously. "You're warm Sophie. Why are you warm while I am cold?" She couldn't answer him. She just stared up into his lost blue eyes and tried desperately not to cry for the pain he never let her see. He hated it when she cried. "Make me warm Sophie, make me like you." _Save me._

She took him in her arms and held him. He was cold and he chilled her to the bone, like dew covered stone. But she wouldn't let go, wouldn't leave him, she had promised. Even if he didn't remember why she stayed, she wouldn't let him down. Not again.

"Sophie don't let me die." His eyes were clouded. Even though she wouldn't leave him he was leaving her. Her heart was breaking. Everyday it broke a little more, but she would stay strong.

He kissed her. She couldn't hope anymore, but she didn't protest. She let his cold lips move over hers and surrendered to her memories of the past when his eyes sparkled with life and joy.

Afterward he was warm against her, and she was afraid she might cry. The warmth was so much like hope, and she couldn't stand anymore lost dreams.

"Sophie, I don't know why, but if you tried to leave, I think I might kill you." She gazed at him silently. He looked vaguely confused. He rarely showed any emotion anymore. "Why do I care so much?" _Because you loved me once._

"I don't know Howl"

"Promise me you won't try to leave Sophie. I don't want to kill you" _I'd rather you killed me than leave._

She was so tired. She spilled the bucket while mopping and watched in detached horror as the water spread across the floor to the hearth. Calcifer was so angry.

"Did you think you could leave if I were dead?" Howe roared at her. Looming. "Did you think you could kill me?" Silent tears streamed down her face. He was so far gone, she rarely saw him in his eyes any more," What are you doing? Stop it. Stop crying, you know I don't like to see you cry!" She couldn't stop though. He gripped her shoulders and shook her. "Stop it!" She could hear the anger and panic in his voice but all she could do was remember the sound of him laughing, happy…

He pulled her close, crushing her against him. He kissed the tears streaming down her face. Kissed her eyelids and her mouth and she hung limp in his embrace. Something of him was still in his body. Some part still cared; still drove him into jealous rages and cold bouts of depression. No matter what he did, she wouldn't leave that part of him. And if one day he killed her, she would die happy, knowing that at least this time, she hadn't let him down.

He had let her down.

* * *

I'd like to thank my reviewers for reminding me that its Calcifer, not Kelcifer.

Now you others who haven't reviewed... Please! I really like it when you tell me you like what I write. 


	2. Hollow Man

I though I'd try and write this from Howl's point of view as well since a couple of my reviewers wanted more and I got inspired. The idea of Howl being aware of what he was; what he was losing, what he was doing, and what he as becoming fascinates me. I want to expand more on this but I don't know if I can... I own neither the book or 'Hollow Men'

* * *

**Hollow Man:**

When I was five it was raining outside; pouring, and the sky was grey, and the ground was grey, and the windows I watched the world through ewre grey. But I was warm and I knew what love was then.

But I am hollow now.

Once a woman I cared about died. She had been a mother to me. I was so upset I nearly died myself for grief. Now the idea appalls me. What possessed be to act this way?

There was a poem I learned once, about men whose heads were filled with straw. Or was it their hearts? They exist. They talk... they move, but they aren't there. There's nothing in them. Life doesn't mater but they keep living.

And _this_ is how the world ends...

I can't stop living. Whatever I am refused to simply end. But my fire is gone. I don't know why people do live. And I exist here struggling in the dark afraid to make a sound; aftraid that all that will emerge is a whimper of despair.

_And this..._

There's a girl who lives with me. She's the cleaning woman I think. Calcifer hates her. I don't know why. I hate to see her cry. I don't know why though. So she doesn't cry in front of me, but she does cry. She cries when I'm not looking. Or when thinks I'm not in the house. Her name is Sophie. I don't why I know any of this or why I care.

I think she reminds me of something, something I'm missing. My head is filled with straw and I'm hollow where my heart should be.

Sometimes I see through the straw and there's something more inside me; something that is light and makes me warm for a moment. And when I'm in this light the sight of Sophie makes me smile, but at the same time I feel broken and cold and so, so hurt.

I'm so angry, so lost, so cold!

Sophie is so warm and soft. I watch her tremble and I want to wrap my arms around her and hold her still. I want to take her and pull her inside of me so that I'm not hollow anymore.

"Why do I care so much Sophie? Why can't I see you leave me?" her eyes tell me the answer. But my eyes do not understand. The answer is ripping at her heart, reaching for my own. But my heart is missing, and she looks away from me, toward the fire.

Then, between the emotion and the response... Falls the shadow. And she answeres the only thing that is a certainty anymore. "I don't know Howl."

I want to be as she is. I want to fell what she feels. Even if it hurts. It would be a different pain than what I feel now. A soft pain compared to this crushing grinding pain I feel in my hollow chest.

Groping together, whispering -- meaningless words of hope, pain -- it doesn't matter because I don't know what the words mean anymore. She is silent though. She has nothing to say and just holds me. I move with her, and for a moment I am warm, for a moment, I think I am alive again.

So I hold onto her. I can't let go. I won't let go. Not until were both dead.

Searching her eyes for something, I hold them with my own, reflecting nothing. But when her eyes fill with tears I look away.

These tears are my doing; my fault. And when I have enough of my soul to care I know:

I have let her down.

Something hot and wet runs down my cheeks and a sound emerges from my throat. The sound that I was so afraid I couldn't hold in; the sound I didn't want others to hear. but she doesn't push me away. She holds me tighter and her tears soak my shoulder as we both whimper in the dark.

And this is more profound -- so much more profound -- than a falling, fading, dying star.

And this... _this is how the world ends._

* * *

So here's just a bit more, tell me what you think please. :) 


	3. How the World Ends

I give you chapter three. I had no idea that this would ever be more than a one-shot...I think I've got an ending in mind... there will probably be one or two more chapters.

**Not with a Bang but a Whimper:**

As his tears run down his face and his lips move in a silent plea I feel my heart mend and then shatter all over again.

When you live in darkness it is so easy to forget what light is. I had forgotten what hope was. I had resigned myself to this unchanging gloom. And in this gloom nothing could hurt my deeply, profoundly, because there was nothing in me left to hurt.

Without realizing it I had been killing my soul, my spirit, just as surely as Calcifer has been draining Howl's.

The knowledge that is wasn't Howl who hurt me; it wasn't Howl who yelled and hit and raged; it was someone else. It could have been the Witch of the Waste for all that this being resembled Howl. All these things made it hurt less.

And when he held me, kissed me, and told me not to leave him… Well, I did hope, at first. I hoped that he was still in there; needing me. And I resolved not to leave him. I wouldn't break my word. Even if he wasn't there to witness me break it. I couldn't let him down again.

But time after time he killed my heart; crushed it in his hard unfeeling hands. And I decided that this semblance of longing and need were just a game that the Wizard Howl played: an amusement. But even if I wanted to leave, even if Howl wouldn't come after me, I still refused to even think it. I would watch as he let me down.

What does a promise mean when the one you made it to is gone - whether in Death's Kingdom or simply beyond reach? What is a promise?

Howl was gone and the part of me that cared was dying too. How ironic that an act of compassion has destroyed him so completely, and me as well.

I suppose that is what I made my promise to. That soul filled with compassion. And I can't abandon the memory of it, or the sparks that still shiver in the dark.

And now as he cries, begs, and whimpers in my arms I am torn apart again. He is in there. And this is so much more profound a pain than the loss of one in death.

He is trapped within himself; within this cold shell. And I watch and listen as fragments of what he used to be float briefly to the surface. He is a small child alone in the dark terrified of the shadowy corner and even the shadows he sees lurking in my eyes.

He is afraid that I am as lost as he, that I have lost him. He is lost at sea and I am the life ring he clings to desperately. But I am sinking too.

We huddle on the floor together crying, gasping, whimpering. I wish the world would end suddenly with a bang. I wish that something or someone would burst into our miserable lives and blow Howl away and me with him, because as much as I won't leave him I am terrified of him truly leaving me as well.

But we just hold each other; whimpering.

And slowly, slowly, we fade until we are nothing but straw-filled husks. And the only fire either of us possesses is in the grate in the corner. Where Calcifer growls and moans.

He is a fading star, biding his time. He is the only one here still capable of changing anything. But he is as afraid of cold dark death as we are of being hollow.

And so, trapped in fear, we all wait; wishing this could end but knowing it won't. Humanity is lost to us. We are pitiable but there is no one here to pity us. We, all of us, are hollow. Howl and I die inside as Calcifer watches, and realizes perhaps, that without us he is hollow as well.

* * *

Tell me what you think. Sorry this is so depressing, its just where the muse is taking me.. 


	4. The Fading Star

I think that I'm almost

done. There are either one or two more chapters, not sure yet.

The one who was hollow from the beginning and doesn't understand human emotion finally begins to understand... and realizes that he is the only one who can end it all.

**A Fading Star:**

I sit in my grate, day and night, angrily watching the world. It is not that I don't like my host. Howl is one of the most amusing and interesting humans I have ever observed. And its not that I hate Sophie either... I resent her maybe…

It had been unfair laying so much on her shoulders when she was already going through so much herself. But she had been our only chance. And she had failed. I supposed part of it had been Howl's impetuous nature that had hindered her. Howl lived in the moment and he was, on the surface, rather selfish.

He should have been an only child, and was perhaps the spoiled youngest… But for him whatever was important was in the present and he often pushed the future out of his thoughts until it inevitably became the present.

And even though he knew that he and I were doomed without Sophie's help he still dragged her along on is own distracting schemes. And then, in trying to protect her at the end he doomed himself. Yes we destroyed the Witch and her fallen star but now we're in the same boat as they were who knows how long ago.

I wonder if they ever worried as we did. I wonder if they knew what they would become – or at least if the witch knew. Stars have seen these things happen time and again – have seen the pain as something so bright becomes something dark and foul.

And even though I fear this dark and foul fate, I wonder. I was saved by Howl from final Death: Absolute Darkness. And since darkness is the absence of light does it matter whether the darkness I succumb t is Absolute or what my human counterpart calls evil?

Either way what I was ends.

And the longer I go as I am, the longer I survive on this human heart, the more I find myself experiencing these human fears. As a star I had prepared myself for darkness. But Howl's humanity refused to prepare for anything.

I watch Sophie struggle through her own darkness and she is no longer the woman who I first met. But I sense that underneath her pain is the same determination that was always there. Although to what purpose it goes now I don't know.

Perhaps she is determined to live through this. Perhaps she is determined to stay… funny, Howl wouldn't have it any other way. And though I resent her presence I will not let her leave as long as Howl wants her.

They've begun that human thing of sleeping together. I expected her to fight him more. And I expected Howl to be more forceful. But the first time he kissed her, she let him. And if she doesn't go up to his bedroom at night, instead of raging like he does over smaller, pettier things, he just crawls in with her like a lost puppy.

I think if Sophie hadn't been too late to save us they would have married. I suppose it says something for Howl's character that he fell in love with her personality despite the visage that she had been trapped in by the Witch of the Waste.

And now he has entwined himself so thoroughly with her that it reminds me of our own bond. He is certainly draining her spirit, but it does not benefit him as his heart does me. She loses her light and fire and he watches it drain away and grasps all the more desperately.

He won't let her leave. She won't leave and neither of them can do anything to change it all. Howl can't end himself because even if he doesn't want to live anymore whatever made him save me won't let him destroy me now.

And so now I watch them huddled on the floor. She knocked the mop water over and Howl saw it as an attempt to escape. I couldn't help but react in fear when I saw the water coming. I thought he might finally kill her. Instead as she silently cried he panicked. Tried to comfort her, and watched, a lost child, unable to do anything.

He began crying as well. Now they shudder and gasp on the floor. Both helpless; unable to save themselves. And they don't even think to look to me for help. But I can't find it in me to resent that.

And now in the presence of two beings who are so empty and who so desperately want to end I begin to wonder if final darkness is as awful as I fear it is. I wonder what could be worse than the present.


	5. Forever and Ever, Amen

**Forver and Ever, Amen:**

I didn't know what to do. After the accident I had desperately wanted Sophie to come and live with me, but she refused to leave Howl. And I couldn't understand why. Howl was different now, no longer the lighthearted jovial man he had been.

Both Prince Justin and Wizard Sulliman had been saved; an incredible feat really. I'm now living with Wizard Sulliman and Lettie, but I visit Sophie every now and then. Usually when Howl isn't home. Kelcifer was there though. He's always there. He can't leave. In a way he's as trapped as the two of them, but the more I go over and visit the more it seems as though he's the one in charge.

Once Sophie and I were in the kitchen talking quietly. Kelcifer was in the grate mumbling to himself. Sophie acted as though she didn't want him to hear us. We'd been talking for the longest time. I was tryin to convince her to come and live with Lettie and me, but she wouldn't. She kept sending furtive glances toward the grate.

Suddenly out of the darkened corner a shape loomed. I nearly had a heart attack before I realized that it was Howl. Even then I wasn't much comforted. He's turned incredibly violent since the accident. Goes into a rage if any one gets too close to Kelcifer and I didn't know how he felt about me talking to Sophie. He glared at me now as though I were some kind of animal.

He stalked toward us. Sophie seemed to be barely breathing, and I couldn't take my eyes off of Howl. If he hit her I didn't know what I was going to do. He's much stronger than me. Then he reached out and grabbed her, pulling her hands out of mine.

"She can't leave." He growled. His voice barely sounded human.

"Can't she just come and visit Lettie for a day? Please…" if I ever got Sophie out of that house there was no way I would let her go back but I wasn't about to tell Howl that. I couldn't stand how she was now, so quiet and passive.

"She can't leave me!" He was gripping her shoulders so tightly I was sure there would be bruises in the shape of his hands. I wanted to lash out at him for hurting Sophie, I almost wasn't scared of him anymore, but she was in between me and him, and I couldn't hurt her.

And then to my surprise she wrapped her arms around him in an embrace. "I'm not leaving you Howl." He tore his harsh gaze away from me and looked down to where she had wrapped herself around him. His gaze almost softened.

"But you want to go with Mark. You want to leave me." His voice was lifeless, his face wrathful.

"No. I don't want to go with Mark. I want to stay here with you. I'm going to stay with you." I could see that her eyes were tightly shut and she was holding on to him just as tightly. I was hurt and didn't know what to do. And then he gently wrapped his arms around her in an embrace that almost looked loving, if only his face wasn't carved out of stone.

From where she was with her eyes closed she couldn't see his face and her arms relaxed around him as well. I'd seen Lettie and Sulliman in similar embraces, and knew that to humans an embrace like that meant love. But Howl wasn't human anymore. I stared at them both in shock never thinking that Sophie could love a monster like Howl.

"Get out!" Howl growled in a low voice.

I left. If Sophie insisted on staying with the monster there was little I could do to help. It seemed like she loved him… and had somehow deluded herself into believing that he still cared for her. Maybe he did once, but that Howl was long dead.

It wasn't until later that I remembered the tears on her eyelashes that she wouldn't let fall. I wondered if I should go back and try again. If I should apologize. _Next week…._ I'd go back then and try to fix things, one more time.

The wick that kept Kelcifer going was running out fast. And it was really nobody's fault. He just couldn't stand the darkness around him anymore. The kind of darkness that slithered around his withered heart and made him fear.

But most of all he couldn't stand to watch Howl and Sophie sobbing in each others arms. They held on as if their wretched lives depended on it.

Sophie was hoping against hope that Howl wouldn't disappear into darkness again. And Howl feared returning to the hollowness just as much if not more. At least Sophie could hope, but when Howl was empty there was nothing, no light or hope, within his reach.

And so, Kelcifer had decided to end it all. Before they could lose each other again and before he could to succumb to his own darkness and chicken out.

Suddenly the fire roared to life. The two humans took no notice, simply holding each other tightly. Without warning Howl gasped and went pale. Sophie, thinking the worst moaned. "No, don't leave me! Please, not again" She wrapped herself even more tightly around him.

For a moment Howl's eyes were completely clear. There was no pain or anger, no dark abyss. He stared at her in wonder.

"Sophie." Her name was a statement, a realization. She felt a tugging sensation in her chest but didn't think anything of it. "I love you."

She stared at him in shock for a moment. And then joy and wonder overtook her. "I love you too, Howl." He was still too pale and seemed to be losing color fast but he leaned in and kissed her.

"I'm so sorry I let you down." His voice was barely there. His eyes were fluttering closed. Suddenly an unnamed panic grabbed her.

"Howl! Don't leave me. Don't!" He didn't move.

"I'm not leaving you, you're with me. I can feel you right there."

Sophie smiled, tears dusting her eyelashes. She was suddenly very tired and she laid her head down on Howl's chest. A heartbeat that she had never heard before beat in time with hers and for once, she knew it was true.

It was truer than either knew. Sophie's innate spoken magic had bound them together, as tightly as two souls could be bound. They had fallen into darkness together, and briefly found each other in the light again.

As suddenly as the fire had come to life it went out. And, gently, Howl and Sophie faded into death together as well.

* * *

When Mark knocked on the door of the shop that day there was no answer. He waited for a moment and then hesitantly opened the door. He didn't go in right away, instead staring into the shadowy doorway.

Briefly he wondered if Howl had relocated in order to keep him from trying to take Sophie away. With a deep breath he swept into the room. There was no light in the room, even the grate was dead and it took him a moment for his eyes to adjust and the sunspots to dissipate.

When he could see he stopped breathing. Lying on the floor in front of the grate were two bodies, Sophie and Howl. They lay peacefully in eachothers arms and he didn't think they were sleeping.

He knelt beside them and and lay a hand on Sophie's shoulder. There was no response. Finding them dead was a shock and he couldn't imagine how it had happened. He hadn't thought that Howl could die now.

But the most shocking thing of all was the look on their faces. The last time he had seen them Howl had been so angry and Sophie so broken... Now they looked so peaceful.

If he hadn't known they were dead. If he hadn't experienced the last year and all the pain that had come with it he could believe that this a simple domestic moment.

A private moment that he had accidentally walked in on. The moment when two lovers found each other for the first time and promised to stay together always.

They were finally in peace. And he knew that somewhere they were together, and if they weren't alive they were at least existing in their happilly ever after.

* * *

Ok, thats it folks. Thanks for sticking with me. If it weren't for my reviewers this would have stayed a one-shot. So, go hit that button at the bottom and tell me if it was worth the wait, or if I made some stupid grammer mistakes, I don't really care.

Lots of Love!


End file.
